Sarasota County fires Administrator Randall Reid

County Commission votes 4-1 to oust him after less than two years on the job.

Jessie Van Berkel

It was an abrupt goodbye for the county's top administrator, as four of five Sarasota County commissioners voted Wednesday to fire him for disparate reasons.

No single fault or dramatic misstep doomed Randall Reid, who has overseen about 2,100 Sarasota County employees and executed the commission's policies for less than two years.

One commissioner said Reid had moved too slowly on projects. Another said he'd failed to enforce county policies. A couple cited low morale among employees.

Reid, 59, said his relationship with the commissioners could be summed up in a 1970s song by Dave Mason: “We Just Disagree.”

“There's no way that this man could change who he is. It's not a situation of, if he changed this, or if you do something differently, we'll change our mind,” said Commissioner Charles Hines, who placed the fourth, reluctant vote to fire Reid immediately.

If the vote had been 3-2, the commission would have needed to vote again in three weeks with a majority to remove him. Hines said he did not support the firing, but did not want the situation to “fester.”

Nora Patterson cast the lone dissenting vote. Sarasota County's is a demanding commission, she said, for a demanding community.

“I think overall he balances it well,” Patterson said. “I would like to see him remain with us and correct some of the problems, if they're fair, that commissioners have brought up.”

Air of the inevitable

Momentum for Reid's dismissal gathered quickly over the summer and seemed to have an air of inevitability.

He took the criticism with a calm, straight face during the meeting.

Reid said he thinks he has done good work for Sarasota County and is not insulted that the commission did not think him a good fit.

“I've been a professional manager and will continue to be one,” he said.

Differences between commissioners and their top employee bubbled over in recent months.

Commissioner Joe Barbetta and Reid clashed over the 2050 plan, a guide for future development east of Interstate 75.

The plan is under review, and Reid suggested using academics to analyze a controversial section that requires developers to bear the full cost of services, such as schools and jails, for a new community. Some commissioners and members of the development community have said the requirement is onerous and prevents growth.

Barbetta told Reid that economists should look at the section instead of the academics, but Reid proposed the idea anyway.

The commissioner said that was one of many issues, which also included the handling of finance official Suzanne Gable's resignation in July, that played into his decision.

When Gable left, citing family matters, officials found out she was not a certified public accountant as they'd thought. Commissioner Christine Robinson looked into the situation and said Reid did not keep the board apprised of what was going on. Reid disputed that conclusion, saying he told commissioners the day after he found out about Gable's lack of credentials.

“One thing after another, it just seems like I'm constantly worried about fires. What's the next fire that's going to happen?” Barbetta said.

For Reid's last performance evaluation, Robinson said she gave Reid a negative review, then ripped it up and rewrote it.

“I did that as an investment,” she said, hoping he would address her concerns. That did not happen. “Things for me have not improved, but instead gone the other way.”

The commissioners said they would ask Deputy Administrator Thomas Harmer, a Reid hire, to be interim administrator, at least for the next two weeks.

Harmer has served as an interim and city manager in Titusville. Before moving to Sarasota he was a senior vice president at Pizzuti Cos. in Orlando, which develops and manages real estate.

Harmer said he would do his best to keep the government moving forward smoothly and providing services.

Ripple effect

Some community members called the decision to remove Reid unfair and rushed, and said it would have a ripple effect on the future of county government.

The county hired Reid to clean up the policy and ethics issues surrounding a purchasing-practices scandal that led to the resignation of former administrator Jim Ley.

Reid restored public trust and improved policies, several county government observers said, and needed more time to do his job.

The organization is still recovering from that scandal and the Great Recession, Reid said, and this firing could compound the county's issues with making quality hires. “People are reluctant to jump into something if it's not somewhat stable,” he said.

Reid's quick dismissal breaks a run of stability at the top of the county's bureaucracy, with his predecessors having served longer than the average government administrator.

Before moving to Sarasota County in January 2012, Reid was the Alachua County manager in Gainesville for 12 years.

He is highly regarded in the professional world, and to scrutinize and remove him after such a short time sends a poor message to the administrator's peers, said Cathy Antunes, president of the group Sarasota Citizens for Responsible Government. “Who would want to come and uproot their life and work for this kind of board?” she said.

“This is a very disappointing day for the residents of Sarasota County,” she said after the decision.

Because he was fired, Reid is entitled by contract to severance including 20 weeks' pay, about $73,000, along with deferred compensation and health insurance.

On Wednesday, he said goodbye to employees, many of whom he'd hired. He told commissioners he was proud of his work and hiring decisions.

In a note to management shortly after the commission's decision, he attached a speech by former President Teddy Roosevelt that he has read at many celebrations for retiring managers and elected officials.

He highlighted one section: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly . . . and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

May 24, 2011: Beating commissioners to the punch, County Administrator Jim Ley offers to resign amid a growing scandal involving the improper awarding of government contracts. The commission officially accepts Ley's resignation the next day, ending his 14-year tenure. Former North Port Police Chief Terry Lewis is named interim administrator.

Nov. 15, 2011: Randall Reid is chosen to be the next county administrator. The commissioners voted unanimously to hire Reid, who had held the top job in Alachua County for the previous 12 years.

Jan. 23, 2012: Reid begins his tenure as Sarasota County administrator, vowing to restore accountability and public trust. One of his first tasks is to replace more than a dozen top administrators who were either fired or forced to resign due to the purchasing scandal.

July 16, 2012: Reid names Thomas Harmer as deputy county administrator. Harmer was the senior vice president of the Pizzuti Companies in Orlando, a development and real estate firm. Harmer worked with Reid in Titusville in the mid-1990s, and Harmer eventually became city manager there for eight years. Reid also makes permanent the recent temporary hires of human resources director, emergency services director, and chief financial planning officer.

Aug. 6, 2012: A woman is hit by a car and killed as she trims the grass median near her home — grass that had overgrown due to a county contract dispute with a mowing firm. County employees have been handling some mowing during the contract dispute, but there were not enough county employees to keep up with the grass.

Oct. 29, 2012: The mowing problems continue as an audit reveals that at least one company hired to mow grass along county roads routinely submitted invoices asking to be paid for work that was not done, and some county staffers approved the invoices despite knowing they were false. Problems with the mowing contracts have been a source of frustration for commissioners for months.

Nov. 13, 2012: Commissioners lash out at Reid after learning that the price tag for renovations at Siesta Key beach ballooned to $27 million from an earlier estimate of $21.5 million. “This has not been managed well from the county aspect as far as communication is concerned, as far as time line is concerned, as far as information is concerned,” Commissioner Christine Robinson told Reid at a public meeting. “I think this needs direct intervention from you to get this back on track because this has gone far off track.”

Dec. 19, 2012: Reid acknowledges that some 2,800 county utility customers could be entitled to a refund after being charged for inspections on backflow prevention devices that were never done. The number of customers given credits or refunds eventually grows to more than 8,400, costing the county more than $500,000.

March 1, 2013: Reid received largely positive reviews in his first performance evaluation. County commissioners said Reid is making good progress in addressing ethical problems and met or exceeded expectations in most categories, although there were exceptions. The top criticism fell under the general category of communication breakdowns. “There still appears to be a culture of arrogance, lack of respect, slow work ethic” and other problems with county employees, Commissioner Joe Barbetta wrote in his review.

July 2013: The accountant Reid hired with the promise of bringing renewed ethics and stability to the county abruptly resigns amid allegations that she misled officials about her credentials. Reid hired Suzanne L. Gable in January 2012 and touted her background as a certified public accountant and his experience working with her in Alachua County. But an investigation determines that Gable's CPA license had been “null and void” since 2005.

Also in July, Reid is chastised by commissioners for proposing to bring in outside consultants to help revise a key portion of the county's land-use plan, known as 2050 — after being told not to. Barbetta said Reid crossed a line from being an administrator into policymaking by forcing commissioners to vote on his plan. They rejected it by a 4-1 vote. “We don't need an administrator who thinks he is a sixth commissioner,” Barbetta said.

Aug. 28, 2013: Commissioners grill Reid for not charging a local activist for reviewing county documents. Lourdes Ramirez spent nine hours wading through county documents and could have been charged $218 for having a county employee watch her. But the charge was waived. “I think we have been taken advantage of,” Commissioner Carolyn Mason said.

Oct. 15, 2013: Performance evaluations of Reid show that at least three of the five county commissioners believe Reid is no longer up to the task and should go. Reid is “no longer a good fit for Sarasota County government,” Commissioner Carolyn Mason wrote.

Wednesday: Commissioners Carolyn Mason, Charles Hines, Joe Barbetta and Christine Robinson vote to terminate Reid. Only Commissioner Nora Patterson votes in support of Reid. Following the vote, Reid abruptly stands up and exits the dais, likely for the last time.